A Dialogue among K-12 and Post-secondary Pedagogies and Pedagogues

A Dialogue among K-12 and Post-secondary Pedagogies and Pedagogues

For too long, the conversation about "higher" education has dominated the discussion of education more broadly. Conversations about how we can prepare our children for college, and why so many students enrolling in colleges and universities are unprepared for the work they will encounter are, of course, important. Those of us in "higher" ed have not been thinking enough -- or perhaps at all -- about what we’re doing wrong at the post-secondary level and how the demand to "prepare" learners for “higher” ed might be hindering the ability of our K-12 colleagues to do their jobs as educators. Increasingly, we at Hybrid Pedagogy have begun to wonder how much of what seems new and different about post-secondary pedagogies focused on building, learning by doing, service learning, etc., might actually be old hat to those who spend their days teaching in, studying carefully, or preparing others for elementary and high school classrooms.

We have also started to question the rhetoric of rupture that so often seems to mark the transition from secondary to post-secondary education for young adult learners. A number of Hybrid Pedagogy contributors have addressed the significance of "play" as an element in college and university settings. Anyone who has ever picked up a child from daycare, volunteered in a kindergarten classroom, or remembers vividly the lessons of the elementary school playground or high-school orchestra understands intuitively how important "play" and "playing" are in our early education.
  • To what extent is the turn to "play" in post-secondary pedagogy in general, and digital pedagogy in particular, in fact a return to strategies already familiar and perhaps even tested in the K-12 context?
  • What other strategies might be borrowed, loaned, or reinvented from primary and secondary pedagogy in college and university curricula?
  • We are interested as much in differences that should be respected as we are in convergences that should be cultivated. Are there sound pedagogical and developmental reasons why approaches in one context may not be appropriate in another?
  • What can we learn about pedagogy at all levels by being attentive to the variety among learners, and how age and maturity play a role in creating that rich diversity?
These questions, and perhaps others sparked by them, are what we hope to explore in our first "special collection" of Hybrid Pedagogy contributions. Like the articles in a special issue of a more traditional academic journal, each piece in the special collection will engage with the collection theme. In the last several weeks, we've published our first two pieces related to this call: Robin Wharton's "Building in the Humanities isn't New" and Marisol Brito and Alexander Fink's "Learning from Early Childhood Education: Higher Ed and the Process of Becoming."
 
Here's how you can participate:
  • To submit a piece for consideration, use the Hybrid Pedagogy submission form, and make sure to select, "Yes, it is for the 'Call for K-12 and Post-secondary Dialogue' CFP," in response to the question, "Is this submission related to a special collection?".
  • To participate in the editorial process for the collection as a reviewer, please contact @rswharton on Twitter.
  • Then, read and comment on the pieces once they’re published at Hybrid Pedagogy.
We will accept submissions throughout the Summer and will consider extending the special collection run if we receive a large number of publishable submissions. If you have questions about the process, feel free to contact @rswharton on Twitter or submit them to the Hybrid Pedagogy Gmail account.
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